


Gathering

by GoddessofBirth



Series: Spiral!verse - Vade [1]
Category: Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Firefly
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:19:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lord Marshal's woman has never been wrong, so he knows it's not a matter of if, but when.  For those who have been following on LJ, this follows directly on the heels of "First Night".  Written for the October Writing Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gathering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cedelede](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedelede/gifts).



> If you haven't been following Spiral-verse and its related stories on my LJ, this will honestly make no sense to you, but in my efforts to move all of my posting to AO3, its going up here. And, one day, so will all the other Spiral stories.
> 
> River's words at the end are a bastardization of a line from Richard Siken's poem "Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out".

 

They're camping. Not for strategic purposes, not because a campaign has stranded them away from the ship, not even because Ben or An have somehow gotten themselves into yet another mess while they're under Necromonger care. No, he's laying on his back and staring in bemusement at a foreign night sky, simply because Sade has asked him to.

 

It's not that he doesn't like it, the feel of the earth under his back, the smell of leaves, wet and lush from an earlier Spring shower, the embers popping and sparking from the campfire. It's just that he hasn't done this since...since before. The Necromongers are people of iron and steel and machinery, as Sade is fond of saying, her nose wrinkling in reflexive distaste, even after all this time. They set foot on planet to fight, to conquer, to destroy; not to stay. Not to build.

 

Or that used to be the way. Riddick's reign has stayed the mindless swath of bodies left in their wake, but old habits die hard, and the Necromongers still keep to their ships for the most part.

 

Except for them.

 

Except for tonight.

 

Except for every other hour and minute and second she brings something new to his life. He will never get used to the surprise of her.

 

There's a rustle of fabric, and Sade sits beside him, her bare toes just peeking out from beneath her skirt. She'd discarded her _hijab_ seconds after they walked off ship, and the subtle highlights in her hair are glinting brilliantly in the firelight. She joins him in looking at the sky.

 

“Always different, but comforting all the same. The first thing The People would do, when we settled to a new planet, was to learn the patterns in the sky.” She smiles wistfully. “I don't honor the tradition as much as I should.”

 

There are things he could say, things he maybe _should_ say, but even though that kind of softness comes far easier with her than anyone else, it's still a struggle, and not his first instinct. Instead he matches her story with one of his own.

 

“My home world was unbearably hot in the late summers. Sometimes the cooling systems would fail, and my parents would send us out to sleep in the night breezes. The children's quarters in the monastery had ceilings that could be retracted with the push of a button. It made those first few months less foreign, seeing the same constellations.”

 

He rarely talks about the before. At first, because he barely remembered, the memories twisted up and reforged in the purification, and what he did remember he didn't care about. Then, years later, when images and faces began reconnecting, it hurt too much, the pain a strange, difficult thing – softer than aggression and rage and hatred, but deeper; a dull ache he couldn't make go away no matter who he fought or what he killed.

 

But he tells her. He will always tell her.

 

They sit in silence for a long time, and he finally pulls her down to lie next to him, her head on his shoulder and her feet tangled with his, although he has yet to take his boots off and she had removed her shoes hours ago. This world has three moons - one dust red, one ash blue, and one a pale butter yellow. They sit large and luminous in the sky, and they track a good two fingers distance through the night before Sade breaks the stillness.

 

“Something is coming.”

 

“Is She speaking again?” The passage of time has not given him any greater love for her Goddess, or that weak cohort of milksops she calls a pantheon; these deities that would rather their worshipers suffer and die than pick up the sword. She may have led Sade to him, and for that he is grateful, but it doesn't change the fact that when their gods meet, his will grind hers to dust.

 

Sade props up on her elbows over him and kisses the corner of his mouth. She's well aware of his opinions on her gods, just as he knows she holds his in similar disdain. “She always speaks. But I heard from An today. Ben is Seeing, and his visions scared her. Separation. Blood. Long journeys and different names. Wars. Our 'verse and yours.”

 

He shakes off the small spike of irritation at the fact she still refers to that backwater system as hers, even after over a decade of living in his, because he knows that's not what she means. Neither her system, nor these, are their homes, not really. They've built their homes within each other; physical location matters little.

 

“What does the Lord Marshal's woman say?”

 

“River? You know she actually has a name, yes? Not Queen Consort, and not “the woman”, either.” Her eyes are dancing with amusement at him, and he shrugs loosely, pulling her so she's more laying on top of him than beside him.

 

“Says the woman who rarely utters mine.” He kisses her, slides his hand down the small of her back as he tastes her, deep and rich and her mouth flavored with just a hint of the berries she'd picked earlier (he had not joined her, although he had been coaxed into holding the bucket).

 

When he loosens his grip enough to let her pull back, she's grinning down at him. “But you're my _zhanshi_ , my warrior.” She drinks from his lips; small sips, over and over again, until they're both breathless and panting, and she picks back up the thread of conversation. “But, yes, you're my Vaako as well.”

 

There will be more discussion in the later hours of the night, about how to prepare for something when they know very few details about its arrival, about the fate of the twins and whether the gods would ever permit them to escape their destiny, or if they had always been meant to tear the worlds asunder. But for now they put it aside, because they have lived through wars and wars and wars, and they know to take the moments when they have them. It has been a long time since they have stared at each other across the abyss, and read regret in each others eyes for chances not taken, words not spoken, decisions never made.

 

She utters his name again when she comes, her nails in his shoulder and her knees braced around his hips, and he adds it to the handful of other times she's done the same. Each one is burned to memory for their rarity, like a fine wine, or a remembrance of his childhood, or the very first time he saw her naked in the moonlight.

 

_Vaako,_ she whispers against his lips. _Vaako_. He would pray to that voice, and he would pray to her name; she's as much his god as any of the dark deities he worships, maybe more, because he would curse them all to follow her to the ends of Under-Verse and back.

 

He had once chosen to let her die, rather than make her a thing she would despise, and he wonders if she realizes he will never do that again. He would rather her hate him than lose her after all these years, because he would lose all of him as well.

 

_Your love_ , River had told him, many, many years ago, when the first of the wars had settled, _is larger than the usual romantic love. You love like we do. Like a religion. And it's terrifying_. _People will always kill for that kind of faith_. _One day you will die for it_.

 

Her prophesy has yet to come true, but he's not a fool. The Lord Marshal's woman has never been wrong. It has always been just a matter of when.


End file.
